Some medical conditions require regular dosage or continuous infusion of medicaments. These medicaments are often provided as liquid solutions to be infused, e.g. transdermally. Diabetic patients, for example, may require insulin. In the attempt to make the life of these patients easier, infusion devices have been developed. Infusion devices known in the art typically comprise simple injection pen-like devices or complex pump devices, and use mechanical or electro-mechanical pumping to deliver the medicament to a patient through the skin. The injection pen-like devices require the patient to make a new injection every time, they are not discreet and are associated with discomfort, fear of injection and pain. Also, they lack any sort of control, feedback and safety feature. They have however the advantage of being inexpensive and relatively simple to use. Pump devices on the other hand comprise a large number of elements needed for operation and control, e.g. a processor, electric components, a battery, buttons or switches located on the housing of the device, visual feedback via text or graphic screen, etc. For these reasons, they are expensive, difficult to use and tend to be bulky and uncomfortable. Moreover, they require specialized care, maintenance and cleaning to assure proper functionality and safety for their intended long-term use. Other types of medical devices have been therefore proposed. US2012245515A1 for example, discloses a medical fluid-flow regulating device comprising a medicament reservoir, a pump and a rotor connected to the pump for pumping the medicament from the reservoir when the rotor rotates, the rotor being driven by an external hand-held activation device. An advantage of such a medical fluid-flow regulating device is that it comprises a small number of components and is therefore small and inexpensive. Moreover, it is comfortable, discreet, and easy to use. It is also safe since it further comprises a safe-lock mechanism, which can be unlocked in a specific manner by the hand-held activation device.
EP 2 910 263 A1 discloses a medical fluid-flow regulating device comprising a rotor and a flow-regulator element engaged or engageable with each other via a coupling that, below a torque, allows the flow-regulator element to move upon rotation of the rotor and thereby regulate the fluid flow. This device further comprises a safe-lock mechanism which can be unlocked only when a hand-held device is coupled to it. Even if such a mechanism avoids the operation of the pump and rotor when the hand-held device is not coupled to them, it does not prevent improper use of the device if some problem occurs during the administration of the medicament, such as an obstruction or a partially obstruction along the fluid path. In such cases the device may deliver uncontrolled doses of the medicament without the user being aware of it.
It is therefore further desirable to make medical fluid-flow regulating devices even safer to use by ensuring safe operation in the event something occurs to impede proper functioning of such devices.
This is achieved by the combination of features as described and claimed herein.